


we could be immortals

by hedakombikru



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, F/F, F/M, Inhumans (Marvel), M/M, Romance, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-25
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-17 04:29:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4652271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hedakombikru/pseuds/hedakombikru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Terrigen Mist clears, people all over DC discover that they now possess unique superhuman abilities. Seeking answers, some of these people manage to find each other.</p><p>An Inhumans AU (or a Heroes AU, if you squint)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mist: The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter consists mostly of snapshots introducing some of the main characters and what happened to them during and after the release of the Terrigen Mist. The next chapter is where actual plot will begin. This is all going to be only loosely based on the Inhumans universe from the comics and what little we've seen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so just a fair warning there in case anyone is expecting complete accuracy with respect to the Inhumans stuff.
> 
> Title from 'Immortals' by Fall Out Boy.

_Centuries ago, tribes of Inhumans lived in secret around the Earth. Many of them mated with humans, passing dormant inhuman genes down the generations. In most of their descendants the gene is recessive, but in some it is dominant, and it takes only exposure to the Terrigen Mist to release it from its dormant state. These descendants now walk amongst humans in modern society, unaware of their inhuman ancestry. That is, until the Mist arrives._

* * *

 

It was all over the news. The sudden appearance of people with wings or scales or horns. A person made of glass, a human fish, a man with skin like tree bark. There was mass panic for weeks until the unlucky ones, the ones with the noticeable changes, were forced to disappear from public view. Some went into hiding, and some, in the absence of laws to protect these individuals, were captured for experimentation. Many were hired to work for the military, even, if the rumors are to be believed. There were a lot of rumors. Nobody really knew anything for sure.

But there were others. People who appeared visibly unchanged but possessed their own remarkable new abilities. The news spoke little of them, and they tried to keep it that way, staying under the radar. But some did attempt to find each other, to connect and try to understand why the Mist had changed them. A few even took it upon themselves to make a difference with their new powers. For better or for worse.

* * *

 

CLARKE GRIFFIN

Clarke was walking home from her late shift at the café when it happened. The greenish fog appeared suddenly, spreading through the streets of DC like billowing clouds of dust, enveloping anyone in its path. In the darkness of a late fall evening, she didn’t notice the mist until it was right in front of her, and by then it was too late to try to escape it.

Clarke fell to her hands and knees on the sidewalk, coughing as the cloud surrounded her, filling her lungs. She glanced up and squinted through the mist as she looked for someone, anyone, who could help, but there was never anyone out in her neighborhood at that time of night, and even if there had been, she wouldn’t have been able to see them.

The eerie fog continued to blanket the streets unbidden as Clarke collapsed with one final cough and blacked out.

\---

It was still nighttime when she came to, gasping a breath as the dark, shell-like substance coating her body broke away, crumbling to the sidewalk beneath her. Clarke gasped again and sat up, whipping her head around to view the empty street in confusion.

The green fog, mist, whatever it was, was gone, almost as if it had never been there at all, though the crumbled mess of the mysterious substance surrounding Clarke told her _something_ had definitely happened. A glance at her watch told her she’d been out for almost two hours.

This finally spurred Clarke into action. She leapt up quickly, and had to stabilize herself against a telephone pole as she fought the dizziness washing over her in waves.

When she no longer felt as though she would pass out if she so much as wiggled a finger, Clarke took a deep breath of fresh, mist-free air and carefully stooped to grab her bag from the sidewalk, where she’d dropped it prior to collapsing. Slowly, she began to shuffle her way down the last block to her apartment.

Her mind was fuzzy enough that the five-minute walk seemed to pass instantly, and soon she was stumbling into the elevator and hitting the button for the third floor.

“I feel like I’m drunk,” Clarke groaned to the empty lift, pressing her forehead against the cool metal wall.

When the elevator let off on her floor, Clarke got out and shuffled down the hall to her one-bedroom apartment. In reality, it was a two-bedroom, but she lived alone and had converted the second into an art studio so she could work on pieces for her gallery from home. She made a good living on her paintings alone, but the café job allowed her to get out of the house and associate with people more, which she normally enjoyed, so she kept it as a supplement, however unnecessary.

Clarke didn’t even bother with the lights once she was inside, merely locking the door behind her and tossing her keys and bag onto her kitchen counter as she stumbled through the dark apartment to her bedroom. Her jacket and shoes ended up in a pile on the floor beside her bed, and by the time Clarke’s head hit her pillow, she was asleep.

\---

The pounding headache Clarke felt upon awakening the next morning had her half convinced she really did get drunk last night, despite not having touched any alcohol. Was it possible to get drunk off a mysterious green mist? Clarke had no idea. It was mysterious, after all.

By the time she managed to roll out of bed, it was nearly noon. Clarke was immensely grateful that she didn’t have to start her shift at the café that day until three o'clock. She popped a few painkillers in the bathroom and went to fix herself coffee and something to eat.

After a breakfast so late it was basically lunch, two mugs of coffee, and a couple of rerun episodes of _Full House_ on TV, Clarke returned to her bedroom to shower and get ready for work.

She finished with enough time to sit at her dining table for a while with another cup of coffee and sketch some faces and landscapes from memory before she had to leave for the café. As she locked the door on her way out, Clarke felt her phone buzz in her pocket. She answered on her way down the stairs.

“Hello?”

“ _Do you ever check your caller ID? You always seem to answer like you have no idea who's calling,_ ” teased the voice on the other line.

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Hi to you too, Wells.”

“ _Hey, Clarke._ ” Her best friend’s voice was warm and gentle, as always, but his next words contained a note of nervous excitement she only heard when he was about to tell her some piece of news that he thought was interesting, and that Clarke only found interesting about half the time.

“ _Have you been watching the news today?_ ” Wells asked eagerly.

“I just woke up a few hours ago, Wells. The only thing I’ve watched is _Full House_ reruns while mainlining caffeine,” Clarke told him, jumping off the last step on the ground floor of her building and pushing through the stairwell door.

“ _Well did you at least see that creepy green mist floating through the streets last night?_ ”

Clarke froze halfway through pushing open the front door of her building, recalling her little episode last night after walking through said mist. She decided not to mention that to Wells. “Yeah, that was weird,” she commented, continuing through the doorway and out onto the sidewalk. “Do you know what it was?”

“ _No, nobody’s really sure yet,_ ” Wells answered. “ _But Clarke, you have to turn on the news. You aren't going to believe what’s happening._ ”

Clarke glanced both ways and then crossed the street. “I’m on my way to work right now, Wells. Give me the highlights.”

“ _Okay, okay._ ” Wells sounded like he was itching to do so anyway, so Clarke listened intently as she neared one of the busier main streets leading to the café. “ _Most people are saying that creepy mist caused it. Scientists have no idea what’s going on. My lab researches_ plant _species and even my boss is dying to study the phenomenon. Clarke, some people have been... changed. On the news I saw-_ ”

“A person with wings?” Clarke choked out, tripping on the sidewalk as she finally emerged onto the busy street and caught sight of the cause of a huge commotion she had heard before it even came into view around the corner.

“ _Amongst other things, yeah,_ ” Wells breathed, sounding completely awed. Clarke barely heard him over the noise of the crowd impeding her path. Not that she was making much effort to get through at this point anyway.

The wide-eyed man standing in the middle of the road with massive bat-like wings suddenly flapped them once, twice, and then shot up into the air, gliding overhead before disappearing from view behind the taller buildings in the distance. The noises of the gathered crowd got louder at the display, and Clarke’s headache intensified.

She pressed two fingers of her free hand to her temple and rubbed at it as she began shoving her way through the masses of people again, trying to refocus on what Wells was saying.

“ _-with scales and everything. It’s incredible, Clarke. I get why people are scared, but-_ ”

“Wells,” Clarke cut him off. She felt like her head was going to explode from all the noise. Why was it so loud? “I have to go, I’m almost at work. I’ll talk to you later, okay?” She hung up before he could respond, jamming the phone back into her pocket as she pushed through the door to the café. Getting off the bustling street brought her some relief, and Clarke dropped the hand from her temple. The relief was minimal, but it was better, at least.

One of her coworkers, Harper, greeted her from behind the counter. “Hey, Clarke. Can you believe all this? They’re saying a toxic gas was released from some factory late last night and it’s causing rapid mutations in people who were exposed. The government can’t find a way to contain the problem because there doesn’t seem to be a pattern to the people being affected. The café has been packed all day with people coming in and buying stuff just so they can sit and watch the news on our TV. I’ve had to empty the tip jar twice already. Scared and distracted people are surprisingly good tippers.”

She watched Clarke round the counter and pop a few more painkillers from her bag before downing them with a cup of complementary water.

“Are you okay, Clarke?”

Clarke waved her off, stooping to store her bag under the counter. “I’m fine. Just a headache from all the noise.”

Harper frowned as her eyes followed Clarke’s gesture to the gathered customers, most of whom were sitting silently enraptured beneath the mounted television, or else whispering furiously amongst themselves. Thinking Clarke was perhaps referring to the commotion of the people she could see outside the café’s bay window, Harper nodded and smiled sympathetically.

“Okay. Well, since you’re here, I’m going to go take my break,” Harper said, pulling off her apron and tossing it beneath the counter. She grabbed a bottle of juice from the small fridge. “I’ll be out back if you need me.”

Clarke nodded and Harper gave her one last concerned glance before exiting out the door marked ‘Employees Only.’

Sighing, Clarke reached for her own apron, tying it around her neck and waist. The ringing of the bell over the door drew her attention then, and she watched as a clean-shaven man in a business suit entered the café. Was that bell louder than usual? Her head throbbed and she forced a smile in welcome and looked down to open up a new order on the computer screen. Clarke greeted him again as he stepped up to the counter. When she glanced back down at the screen, she heard a slightly muffled order of ‘black coffee with room’ and she nodded.

“Black coffee with room, coming right up,” Clarke said, punching in the order. She looked up to find the man staring at her in confusion. “Is something wrong, sir?”

He continued to stare for a moment and Clarke had to resist the urge to check if there was something on her face. Finally, he asked, “How did you know that?”

Now Clarke was confused. “I’m sorry?”

“I haven’t ordered yet,” the man returned. “How did you know what I wanted?”  _I’ve never even been here before._  This time Clarke was looking at him when she heard the muffled voice, and while she was certain now that it _was_ his voice, the last sentence had definitely not come from the man’s lips. Well, shit.

Clarke managed to play it off as a lucky guess – “I’ve been doing this for a long time, you know?” – and got the man his coffee without further incident. Once he had left, Clarke, though feeling rather ridiculous, decided to experiment.

She hadn’t noticed Harper’s strange look earlier, but now that Clarke focused on the people sat watching news footage of a woman with tentacles splashing in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, she realized that most mouths weren’t even moving. But she could hear their voices. Panicked, rapid-fire thoughts on the ‘monsters’ running around the city, confused questions regarding how all of this was happening. They were filtering through her head ceaselessly, fading in and out of the din as her gaze flicked from one wide-eyed face to another.

If she didn’t have proof on every webpage and news channel that the mist had caused unbelievable things to occur, Clarke would have been convinced that she was going insane. But she hadn’t lost her own mind - she was reading others’.

\---

Clarke begged off her shift early, feeling only slightly guilty about leaving Harper’s replacement, Monroe, to work the café alone. After three hours of hearing people’s orders before they made them and pretending she _hadn’t_ heard certain other thoughts, Clarke was fighting the mother of all headaches and feeling mentally exhausted.

As Clarke left the café, she pulled out her phone and hit number one on her speed dial.

Wells answered on the second ring. “ _Clarke?_ ”

Clarke stayed close to the edges of the buildings, keeping as far from other people as possible as she speed-walked back to her apartment. “Wells, I took off from work early. What are you doing right now? Can you meet me at my apartment?”

Wells seemed flustered as he responded, “ _Yeah, sure. I’m just at home watching the news. I can be over in ten._ ” She heard him shuffling around on the other end, presumably donning his jacket and shoes. “ _Clarke, are you okay?_ ” he asked, concerned.

“I'm fine,” she huffed, nearly jogging now as she raced to get away from all the voices. “I’ll see you soon,” she told him, and hung up.

\--

True to his word, Wells knocked on her door ten minutes after her call, and Clarke opened the door to find him worriedly tapping his foot against the ugly floral carpeting in the hallway. She ushered him in and shut the door, locking it behind him.

“Thanks for coming,” she greeted. Clarke rounded the back of her couch and sat down heavily, gesturing for Wells to do the same.

He did, hesitantly, and then fixed Clarke with a questioning gaze. He opened his mouth to ask, but she answered before he could voice the question.

“I’m okay, Wells. And no, I’m not in trouble.”

Wells raised his eyebrows. “How-?”

“I think I’ve been affected,” Clarke interrupted, staring down at her tightly clasped hands. She could hear Wells’ thoughts, swirling in confusion and apprehension, but this time she waited for him to ask.

“Affected? By what?” He laid a hand over both of hers. “Clarke, what’s going on?”

She looked up, meeting eyes just as expressive as the thoughts in his head. “That mist. I don’t – I don’t have scales, or anything, but I think… I was walking home last night, from my late shift at the café, and I was outside when it passed through. I remember passing out, then waking up a while later, and now…”

Wells’ hand tightened over hers. “‘Now’ what, Clarke? Talk to me, please.”

Clarke took a deep breath, forcing herself to maintain eye contact in hopes of communicating the sincerity of her next words. “Now I think I can read minds.”

She almost laughed at the blank look on his face, but her head was still pounding and reminding her that this was real, and not some silly prank on her best friend.

“You…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “You can _read minds_?”

She withdrew her hands from beneath his and used them to tug nervously at her hair. “I know. I _know_ it sounds ridiculous, Wells, but today I heard a man’s coffee order before he even asked for it. I heard people panicking in their heads over what they saw on the news.” She paused, took another breath, and then added, “When you got here, you were wondering if you forgot to lock your car. How else could I know that when you never said it out loud?”

Wells exhaled, running a hand over his hair. “I- Okay,” he nodded. “Okay, what am I thinking right now?”

Clarke pursed her lips and listened. Despite having only discovered this a few hours ago, she was finding it increasingly easier to tune the voices in and out. When she realized what Wells was thinking about, Clarke smiled, a light chuckle slipping past her lips. “You’re remembering that time when we were ten and my dad took us to the carnival. You wanted funnel cake and then I insisted we go on the Tilt-A-Whirl afterward. You threw up in every trash can between the ride and our car, but you wouldn’t let me apologize, because-”

“Because we still had a good time before that.” Wells smiled back. “Clarke, this is…”

Clarke huffed in agreement. “Yeah.” She turned her thoughtful gaze to the coffee table, focusing on the can of sketching pencils resting there. She didn’t realize the can was moving across the table with her shifting eyes until it suddenly went tumbling off the edge, spilling pencils all over her living room carpet. The clatter made them both jump.

“What-?”

“Did you just-?”

They stared at each other for a moment before Clarke looked back to the pencils and slid off the couch to pick them back up.

“Do it again,” Wells told her when she set the can back on the table.

She turned around, eyebrows raised. “What?”

Wells gestured to the pencil can. “Clarke, that didn’t just slide a foot across the table and fall off on its own. _You_ made it move.”

Clarke frowned skeptically. “Wells, I can’t-”

“Just try it, Clarke.”

Sighing, Clarke turned back to face the can and fixed her gaze the way she had before. Her brows furrowed as she focused on trying to make it move. After a minute, the can began to slide again. It only managed a few inches this time before it wobbled and tipped over on the table.

Clarke released a shocked exhale, slumping back against the couch.

Wells laughed in surprise and gave a single clap of his hands. “This is incredible,” he exclaimed. “The mist _did_ change you. Which means…”

Clarke nodded. “Which means the people with the wings and the scales and the tentacles might only be a fraction of the people who were affected.”

Wells sighed, clasping his hands. “Could be good, could be bad. The news hasn’t picked up on anyone without noticeable mutations yet. Not that I’ve seen, anyway.” He reached forward and grabbed Clarke’s remote to switch on the TV as Clarke pulled herself back onto the couch, turning it to one of the news channels.

“They haven’t covered any other news all day,” he commented. “Before I came over here, they were showing a story about the arrest of a teenage boy with claws and a tail. It was like…” He trailed off, turning suddenly to look at Clarke. “You have to keep this a secret, Clarke. If they start rounding people up…”

“I know.” Clarke shut her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder. “I want to find out why this is happening, but… Don’t worry, Wells, I’ll be careful. I promise.”

* * *

 

LEXA WOODS

Lexa had never once regretted her late night trips to the gym, but there was a first time for everything. Granted, she could never have anticipated being suffocated in a cloud of green mist on the way back to her car and waking up some time later after breaking out of some kind of... Well, she refused to call it a cocoon, even if that was the most appropriate term for the thing that now sat in shattered fragments around her.

A glance around told her she was alone in the back parking lot. Gustus was the only one who stayed at the gym that late, but he also owned the place and lived in the small apartment above it, so given that he’d trusted her to lock up and gone to bed half an hour before she even left, it was unlikely anyone had been around to notice her lying unconscious on the pavement.

The buzzing of the phone in her pocket drew Lexa out of her daze. She scrambled for it before it could go to voicemail, hitting the ‘Answer Call’ button and raising it up to her ear.

“Hello?”

“ _Lexa? Where the hell are you? You texted me that you were on your way home like an hour ago._ ”

Lexa winced at Anya’s volume and drew the phone away from her ear.

“Anya?”

“ _Yes, you idiot, it’s me. Where are you?_ ”         

“I-” Lexa quickly decided that telling her best friend/roommate that she had passed out in a cloud of green mist and woken up in a human cocoon would do nothing to assuage the worry she could hear beneath Anya’s falsely irritated tone, so she lied. “I decided to stay a little longer. Sorry, I forgot to tell you. Be home soon.” She hung up before Anya could question her further.

Pocketing her phone, Lexa sighed, grabbed her gym bag, and half walked, half dragged herself the last few feet to her car.

\---

When she arrived home ten minutes later, Anya practically pounced on her. Lexa tried her best to play it off.

“Seriously? That’s it?” Anya demanded. “You just forgot to tell me you decided to stay at the gym for another  _hour_  after you’d told me you were on your way back?”

Lexa shrugged, tossing her bag to the floor beside the couch and reaching up to scrub at tired eyes. “I was talking with Gustus.”

Anya stared at her skeptically. “Really? Because he didn’t answer when I called, either.”

Shrugging again, Lexa walked to their small kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “His phone died.” She sipped her water, not even able to work up the energy to turn around at Anya’s disbelieving grunt.

“I’m going to take a shower and go to bed,” Lexa declared after a quiet moment. She capped the bottle, set it back in the fridge, and shuffled down the dark hallway to her bedroom.

“Fine,” Anya called after her. “Let me know when you’re ready to tell me what actually happened.”

Lexa’s only response was the closing of her door.

\---

Lexa wasn’t at all surprised to find Anya waiting for her on her bed when she emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later. Anya’s raised eyebrows told her she was in no way accepting Lexa’s flimsy excuse.

With a resigned sigh, Lexa dropped down onto her bed and closed her eyes, waiting for Anya to ask the question.

Lexa was close to dozing off when Anya flopped down beside her and jostled her awake again. “You gonna tell me what happened now?”

Lexa grunted and pried her eyes open. “It was nothing, Anya. I just got held up is all.”

“Doing what?”

Lying unconscious in the parking lot of their friend’s gym, Lexa didn’t say. Instead, she asked, “Did you see that strange mist passing through the streets?”

To Lexa’s surprise, Anya didn’t comment on the apparent change of subject. “No. When was this?” she asked.

“How long have you been home?” Lexa evaded again.

“A few hours, probably. Lexa, what-”

“There was a green mist blanketing the streets,” Lexa said, cutting her off. “It was weird. Hard to see through, so I stayed at the gym until it dissipated.” She left out the part about passing out and waking up in some kind of shell, deciding to ignore that ridiculous occurrence herself in favor of chalking it up to temporary delirium caused by an obviously toxic mist.

Anya sighed and rolled onto her side to face Lexa. “Why didn’t you just tell me that from the beginning?”

Lexa shrugged, allowing her eyes to flutter closed again.

“What kind of mist was this, anyway? Like a fog?”

“I don’t know,” Lexa replied. “It was just... Strange. Something released from a nearby factory, maybe. Like I said, I stayed in the gym until it passed and then I drove home.” She shifted around until she was able to draw her covers over her and then rolled so her back was facing Anya.

“I’m going to sleep,” she declared, and heard Anya huff behind her, perhaps a laugh or maybe in annoyance, but then she was sliding off the bed and making her way to the door.

“See you in the morning,” Anya said, flipping Lexa’s light off and pulling the door shut before Lexa could respond. She was already asleep, anyway.

\---

When Lexa went to the bathroom the next morning to brush her teeth, she had to bite back an uncharacteristic shriek of surprise at the sight of electricity crackling along her outstretched fingers as she reached for the toothbrush. She stumbled backward, accidentally swiping the toothbrush holder off the counter in the process. It bounced off the closed lid of the toilet and clattered noisily to the floor, rolling to a stop at the door of her shower with the toothbrush miraculously still stuck inside.

Lexa still hadn’t moved when she heard Anya’s knock a minute later.

“Lexa? You all right in there?”

Lexa didn’t answer, still staring at the electricity crackling along her fingertips, trying to will it to stop, but it only intensified with her increasing confusion.

After another minute passed in silence, Anya pushed through the bathroom door. She stopped in her tracks when a larger burst of electricity emanated from Lexa’s right hand as she was startled by Anya’s sudden entrance.

“What the hell?”

Lexa shot her gaze up to Anya’s bewildered face, eyes wide as she held her sparking hands out in front of her.

“Anya. Something is wrong.”

* * *

 

BELLAMY AND OCTAVIA BLAKE

When Bellamy tried to wash his hands the morning after the mist incident, it was safe to say the last thing he expected was to see the water streaming from the faucet bend away from his upturned palm. It jettisoned over the edge of the sink basin and splattered across the kitchen counter for a moment until he quickly withdrew his hand. As soon as he did, the water returned to its normal direction of flow.

“What the fuck?”

Octavia, seated on a stool at the counter, observed the incident with wide eyes. “Holy shit. Was that you?” She hopped off the stool and rounded the counter, moving to stand at the sink beside her brother. “Do that again.”

Bellamy frowned at her. “We live in a shitty apartment, O. It’s probably just the faucet acting up.”

Rolling her eyes, Octavia reached out to grab his forearm. “Bell, you saw all that shit on the news about people being affected by that mist crap. Come on, just try it.” She tugged his hand back towards the still-streaming water.

Bellamy nearly cried out under the strength of her grip, feeling like his bones were about to crack. “Ow, okay! Jeez, O, have they been feeding you steroids at that gym you go to?”

“Sorry!” Octavia quickly released his arm.

Bellamy flexed his fingers and tried to shake out the pain, but his palm abruptly burst into flame. “Shit!”

He jumped back, and then slipped on the water that had splattered onto the tile flooring. He instinctually reached out for something nearby to stop his fall, which happened to be Octavia’s bare arm, and she shrieked at the sight of flames licking her skin as Bellamy tugged her down with him. They ended up in a heap on the kitchen floor, Bellamy scrambling away as the flame in his hand extinguished and Octavia raising her arm to inspect the burn.

Except her skin was entirely unharmed, and she realized she hadn’t actually felt any pain.

“I’m so sorry, Octavia. Are you okay?” Bellamy seemed hesitant to touch her, but when Octavia showed him her undamaged arm he breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God. I thought…”

“You did,” Octavia replied, looking up at him. He poked at her skin, as if expecting a burn to suddenly appear, but nothing happened. Octavia withdrew her arm and sat back on her heels as a grin spread across her face. “Bell, you just manipulated water and fire with your fucking _hand_.”

Bellamy gave a disbelieving chuckle, shaking his head in astonishment and staring at his upturned palms. “There’s no way…”

Octavia perked up, grin widening. “You know what this is like?” she asked.

Rolling his eyes, Bellamy replied, “Do not say that this is like that stupid cartoon, Octavia. This is real and it is not normal. _We_ are not normal.” He gestured pointedly to her arm. “Your damn skin didn’t even get burned.”

“Which is _awesome_ , Bell. Passing out in that freaky mist is officially the best thing that’s ever happened to us.”

Bellamy shook his head, pushing himself to his feet. “No, it’s unnatural, and we clearly need to find out what was up with that mist, or toxic gas, or whatever they’re calling it,” he declared. “I don’t want you getting sick.”

Octavia sighed and rolled her eyes again, reaching out for the edge of the counter to haul herself back up, prepared to argue her point. But the faux granite crumbled beneath her grip, and Octavia nearly lost her balance again. She examined the chunk of damaged countertop in her hand.

“Oops.”

* * *

 

RAVEN REYES

Raven was pretty sure that creepy fog from last night was now causing her to hallucinate, because the last time she checked, her television was not capable of being turned on by swiping a finger through the layer of dust on it. Experimentally, she reached out and touched the top of the TV again.

The screen went black as the television shut off.

The next time Raven put her hand on the device, she left it there, and was surprised to feel a surge of energy run through her. She felt like she was directly interfacing with the machine.

Raven’s eyes focused on the television screen as it flickered between channels, some she shouldn’t even have access to according to her cable plan. She could _feel_ the electronics responding to her command and it sent a thrill down her spine.

Eventually, standing without her brace became too much, and Raven limped over to the couch to sit down, leaving the TV on a news channel. It appeared she was not the only one having a weird experience after that mist.

“Damn,” she breathed, watching the footage intently.

At least she hadn’t grown a tail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This doesn't introduce everyone who will have abilities in this story, but I didn't want to drag this on anymore than I have and the others can be more easily explained later on. Also, I based most of the characters' powers off Marvel Inhumans characters and I will probably list the comparisons in the next chapter if anyone is interested.
> 
> Thanks for reading, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated!


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not super happy with this chapter, but I wanted to get it posted so here it is. Thank you for all the lovely comments and for the kudos and bookmarks, they're much appreciated!

TWO MONTHS LATER

 

“This is a terrible idea.”

“What? This is a great idea.”

“Clarke,” Wells sighed, “You’re going to meet with a stranger you found online who probably wants to capture you for experimentation or, I don’t know, assuming he’s telling the truth, maybe murder you with his mysterious superhuman ability.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Relax. He’s not going to murder me.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

Clarke stopped searching for her missing car keys and turned around to face her friend. “Wells, we’re meeting in a Barnes & Noble, not a dark alleyway. Besides, while we didn’t talk about our abilities in explicit terms, I didn’t really get the impression that he likes to use his for homicide.”

“Clarke, come on,” groaned Wells. Despite his worries concerning Clarke’s decision-making skills, he handed her the keys he’d found tucked between the couch cushions.

Clarke took them with a grateful smile. “Look,” she told him, moving to grab her bag off the kitchen counter, “If you’re so worried, why don’t you come with me?”

“So we can both get killed? Yeah, great, let’s go,” he snarked, but followed Clarke out of the apartment and into her car anyway.

Wells kept his disapproval to himself for the duration of the ten-minute drive to the bookstore, though he knew Clarke could easily still hear what he was thinking, assuming she wasn’t actively blocking him. She usually did. Block him, that is, but it was normally out of respect for his privacy and not because she was exasperated by his overprotectiveness.

In the two months since The Mist incident, Clarke had gotten significantly better at controlling her powers, tuning into specific individuals’ thoughts at will or muting them entirely with little effort – it ensured she wouldn’t need that lifetime investment in aspirin she’d been considering for the first few days. The telekinesis was also more or less fully in control, much to Wells’ displeasure, considering she could now throw things at him “for being an idiot” without even moving. Clarke had even discovered a new ability, on one occasion when Wells had attempted to throw something back at her. Instead of hitting her like he’d intended, the rubber eraser had rebounded off a shimmering shield of light that suddenly appeared in front of Clarke’s face. The psionic force field was still a work in progress, but they had both been suitably amazed.

In light of all the noticeably Affected disappearing – only some of them by choice – she had also gotten good at keeping the secret from anyone but Wells. Until now. Wells had no idea how, but two weeks prior, Clarke had managed to stumble upon a discreet online forum where people affected by the Mist – the Affected, as they’d been collectively dubbed – were making connections in an attempt to make sense of what had happened to them. Supposedly. Wells was still skeptical.

There was one theory in particular that Clarke found intriguingly plausible, and discussing it was how she had become acquainted with the guy they were on their way to meet. And honestly, Wells didn’t think it was a bad theory, either – that something unique in the Affected’s DNA had facilitated the changes upon contact with the Mist. It made sense. Meeting with a stranger from the Internet did not.

Wells made sure to reiterate that point one last time as they made their way from the parking lot to the bookstore. Clarke merely chuckled.

“Wells, just trust me on this,” she urged. “I really need answers and this guy might be able to help me find them. Besides,” she tapped her temple, “I’ll be able to tell if he has murderous intentions.”

Sighing, Wells held open the door and followed as Clarke walked in. They took the stairs down to the lower level and headed to the small Starbucks in the back corner, where Clarke and her Internet friend had agreed to meet.

It was a Monday afternoon, so most of the tables were empty, the only patrons being an elderly couple, a businessman in a tailored suit, and a guy with smooth black hair who had his back turned and hunched over a laptop.

They walked up to the counter to order their coffee as Clarke looked around.

“Do you know what he looks like?” Wells asked, handing his money to the cashier. He stuffed the changed in his pocket and they went to wait at the end of the counter for their drinks.

“No,” Clarke shook her head. “Well, not really. I just…” She trailed off, eyes fixating on the guy with the laptop. There was something about him…

“Clarke?” Wells prompted. He stared at her narrowed eyes questioningly.

Clarke waved off his concern and took the mocha he handed her. “It’s just…” She gestured to the laptop guy. “I think that’s him.”

Wells’ coffee came a minute later and he followed reluctantly as Clarke led them over to the table where the guy sat. When they rounded the table, the two got a better look at his face. He appeared about their age, maybe younger, but it was hard to tell with the strange-looking glasses covering his eyes. They looked almost like any common pair of sunglasses, except when the lenses caught the fluorescent lighting of the café, several wavy, shimmering lines could be seen stretching across them, kind of reminiscent of a computer chip.

As they stepped into his line of view, the guy looked up, presumably eyeing them warily behind his glasses.

Clarke cleared her throat hesitantly. “MoonPhysics?”

Eyebrows rose above the top rim of his sunglasses. “Skygirl100?”

Clarke nodded, and Wells had to make an effort not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“Clarke Griffin,” she introduced, holding out her free hand. The guy shook it.

“Monty Green.”

Clarke gestured to Wells. “This is my friend Wells,” she explained, noticing Monty’s head turn tentatively in Wells’ direction. “Sorry, he insisted on coming with me to make sure you weren’t a murderer or something,” she said, but her tone was light and Monty only laughed.

“I understand,” he said as Clarke and Wells took a seat. He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I’m actually not alone here, either, to be honest.”

Clarke raised a curious eyebrow, glancing around at the elderly couple and the businessman, none of whom appeared to be paying any attention.

Monty chuckled and shook his head. “Not them.” He gestured to the nearby magazine shelves and waved his hand in a beckoning gesture. A moment later, two more young men emerged into the café area, looking equally sheepish. “My best friend and boyfriend were convinced you would end up being a government agent intent on kidnapping me for experimentation,” he said.

The other two guys pulled up seats on either side of Monty as Wells scoffed.

“Wells said the same thing about you,” Clarke chuckled.

“Well, I’m glad we were all wrong,” Monty replied, smiling brightly.

They went through another round of introductions as everyone sipped at their coffee. Despite the place being fairly empty, they kept their voices hushed, fearful of drawing any unwanted attention. Monty introduced his boyfriend, Nathan Miller, and his best friend, Jasper Jordan, and mentioned that the three of them had just recently graduated college together, making them only about two to three years younger than Clarke and Wells.

After an awkward lull in conversation following the obligatory formalities, Wells cleared his throat and asked what he felt was an obvious question. “So, what’s with the sunglasses?” Clarke kicked his foot under the table anyway.

“Erm,” Monty hesitated, then reached up and removed the glasses, fiddling with them as he answered the question. “I invented them,” he said, tapping one of the computer chip-like lenses. “They help normalize my vision.”

“Normalize?” Clarke echoed. Wells could tell she was genuinely curious, which meant she was refraining from reading Monty’s mind, despite what she’d said earlier about verifying intentions.

Monty nodded and set the glasses on the table beside his laptop. “Yeah. Without them, I see lines everywhere. Like waves of color mapping out everything around me. I had no idea what it was at first, and it was super overwhelming, but now that I kind of understand it, it’s incredible. I can _see_ the electromagnetic spectrum, way more clearly than anyone should be capable of,” he grinned. “I can even make the waves tangible. I’m not very good at it yet, but…” He shrugged.

“What does that mean – make them tangible?” Clarke asked.

“It’s hard to explain without experiencing it yourself,” Monty replied. “But it’s like… Like I can control the electromagnetic waves associated with an object. Use them to make the object do things. These rings of light glow around my hands when I do it, it’s pretty awesome.” He put the glasses on again and sat back in his chair. “I would show you, but…”

Clarke nodded her understanding.

Jasper leaned forward then, palms pressed to the table, voice lowered in an excited whisper. “He lifted a car once.”

Clarke and Wells leaned back in surprise.

“Seriously?” Wells asked, tone skeptical.

Before any of the guys could respond, Clarke hummed, sounding intrigued. “He’s telling the truth.”

Four pairs of eyes stared back at her in bewilderment, though Wells’s disappeared relatively quickly, replaced by a look of understanding.

“What’re you, like, a lie detector or something?” Miller wondered.

Clarke shook her head. “Not exactly. I saw it in his mind.”

Monty, Miller, and Jasper’s eyes widened comically.

“You can read minds?” Jasper exclaimed, his whisper almost too loud. Monty smacked his shoulder and told him to keep his voice down. More quietly, Jasper inquired eagerly, “What am I thinking right now?”

Clarke rolled her eyes good-naturedly but indulged him anyway, focusing for a moment before grimacing as she declared, “You’re thinking about the whole pizza you ate for breakfast. And whether you should give the hot barista your number.” She smirked. “Sorry to break it to you, but she has a boyfriend.”

Jasper pouted, and Monty and Miller laughed.

“That’s amazing,” said Monty.

Wells pursed his lips as he looked around the table. His disapproval of this meeting was rapidly dwindling now that it was apparent that Monty and his friends didn’t pose a threat. And he had to admit, Monty’s ability was rather impressive. But the fact that they were meeting in a public place kept him on alert even as he observed his best friend’s delight at finally meeting another Affected.

“My abilities extend beyond mind-reading, though,” Clarke elaborated quietly. Her eyes darted around the café, making sure there were no onlookers, before shifting to the coffee cup in front of Monty. She sent it hovering an inch above the table for a few seconds before letting it drop back down and looking up to meet Monty’s impressed gaze. “There’s more, but like you said, it’s best not to demonstrate it here.”

“You shouldn’t be demonstrating _any_ of it here,” Wells hissed. “What if someone else had seen you just now?” At everyone’s abashed expressions, he sighed. “If we’re going to continue this conversation, I think we should take it somewhere more private.”

Miller glanced at Monty softly and then nodded, everyone else following suit. “Agreed.”

\--

Jasper, Monty, and Miller had gotten to the bookstore by bus, so they all piled into Clarke’s old Camry for the ride to Wells’ apartment, which he’d offered up as a meeting place mostly out of reluctance to let anyone know where Clarke lived, but also because Wells had no desire to visit the shared home of three boys who had only just recently left college.

The radio’s Top 40 hits occupied the silence for the entirety of the short drive. When they pulled up to the building, Miller let out a low whistle.

“Nice place.” Monty and Jasper nodded their agreement.

Wells, and at this point Clarke, were used to that reaction upon people seeing where he lived for the first time. As a graduate student, he admittedly didn’t make very much, but being the only child of a wealthy congressman father who expressed his love in the form of monthly checks did have its perks.

The building was several stories stall, with sleek, modern stylings, top notch security, and even a doorman in a fancy tailored suit, who nodded in welcome as Wells led them inside and up to his spacious and expensively furnished apartment on the eighth floor.

He offered everyone drinks, which they declined, and then led them into the living room. Jasper, Monty, and Miller sat on the large leather sofa, Clarke and Wells settling into the smaller one on the opposite side of the coffee table.

Jasper tapped Monty’s shoulder eagerly and gestured to the table. “Dude, show them the thing now.”

Grinning, Monty, removed his sunglasses, shook his shoulders out, and raised his hands as Clarke and Wells watched expectantly. When he clenched his fists, three thick, bright rings of light appeared in a cone-like formation around either hand from the wrist down.

“What is that?” Wells asked.

Monty shrugged. “I’m not really sure. I think they’re rings of concentrated energy that somehow allow me to channel my control over the spectrum and _feel_ the electromagnetic radiation characteristic to a certain object. Then I can use that to move the object. Watch this.”

He directed the energy rings at the table and they seemed to expand to envelop it. As Monty raised his hands, the table lifted off the ground accordingly, hovering within the beams of light, and Clarke and Wells stared in awe.

“That’s amazing,” they stated in sync.

Monty grinned proudly and set the table down. “I’m still getting the hang of everything, but… It’s not as terrifying as it was in the beginning,’’ he said, pushing his glasses back over his eyes. Clarke smiled sympathetically.

Miller wrapped an arm around Monty’s shoulder, pulling his boyfriend to lean back into the couch with him and then readjusting his beanie with the other hand. “So,” he said to Clarke, “Your turn.”

They spent the next ten minutes throwing anything they could find at Clarke’s force field, despite Wells’ many protestations.

\--

“This has to have a genetic component. Practically everyone was exposed to the Mist, but only some of us were affected by it,” Monty reasoned.

Clarke hummed in agreement. “But why? It seems like no one has been able to find a pattern among the Affected.”

“Not that they’ve told the public about, anyway,” Miller added dryly.

“What we need is to confirm this somehow. Look at samples of our DNA and compare them, you know?” Monty sighed. “But I majored in Computer Science and Engineering, not Biology or Genetics.”

“Math and Business double major,” Miller offered unhelpfully, shrugging.

“Chemistry,” added Jasper. “I only took basic Bio.”

“Clarke was a Human Bio major,” Wells told them, but Clarke shook her head when the others perked up.

“And Art, which is what I do now. I took a few genetics courses, but that was over two years ago,” she sighed. “I _might_ be able to find my way around some DNA samples, but not without the proper equipment.” She trailed off for a moment, and then her eyes brightened. It was a look Wells knew all too well, and when Clarke turned the look on him, he knew he was going to regret asking.

“What?”

Clarke smiled conspiratorially and turned back to the others. “Wells has access to a research lab as part of his graduate work.”

Wells groaned and rubbed a hand over his face. “Except my lab studies plants, Clarke. _Plants_. Not people.”

Clarke rolled her eyes, huffing in exasperation. “You study viruses impacting various plant species, so I know your lab has to have the equipment for both PCR and full sequencing on hand.”

“Seriously, Clarke?” Wells retorted. “You realize you’re asking me to sneak us into a lab, _where I work_ , and make illegal use of highly expensive, highly _sensitive_ ,” his eyes jumped to the boys on the couch across from them, lingering a bit longer on Jasper, “machinery, so that you can _maybe_ figure out what’s going on with your superpowered DNA. And all without getting caught, fired, and probably arrested.”

Clarke exhaled heavily and leaned her head back, and the others’ shoulders dropped. “You’re right,” she said, “That was a stupid idea.”

Wells rested a gentle hand on Clarke’s knee. “Sorry, Clarke. You know I want to help, but there’s got to be a better way to do this.”

Monty frowned, dropping his chin into an upturned palm. “Maybe we can find someone else to help us? Another Affected who wants answers as much as we do.”

“How?” Miller replied. “You were lucky enough getting Clarke to agree to meet up, even luckier that she’s legit. There weren’t many users on that dumb website to begin with, and it’s not like you can just go around asking people whether they’ve recently developed superhuman abilities.”

He tried and failed not to chuckle at the resulting pout on Monty’s face.

Jasper stretched until his spine popped and then kicked his feet up onto the coffee table, dropping them immediately at the look Wells gave him. “Maybe we _can_ go around asking questions, and then Clarke can just read everyone’s mind to find out if they’re thinking about their superpowers or not,” he suggested.

Monty raised an eyebrow. “Dude, that’s-”

Clarke sat up abruptly, cutting him off. “Hold on. That’s it.”

Everyone eyed her incredulously.

“Wait, seriously?” Miller asked. “You want to try reading thousands of people’s minds?”

“Hundreds of thousands, really,” Monty interjected. “And that’s just DC.”

Clarke shook her head, waving a dismissive hand. “No, no. Not Jasper’s idea. That’s stupid.”

“Hey!”

“I mean, that just reminded me of something,” Clarke continued, ignoring him. “When we were at the bookstore, I was trying to figure out if you were there yet, and I realized there was something about _your_ mind, Monty, that felt different.”

“Different how?” Monty wondered, brow furrowing.

Clarke bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she shrugged, “I can’t really describe it. It’s like I just _knew_ you were different. I’ve read a lot of minds in the past two months, but yours seems to put off some kind of signal I’ve never felt before.”

“Maybe it’s because of my specific ability?”

Clarke tossed her hands up uncertainly. “I can’t be sure. Maybe.”

Wells scrubbed at the top of his head contemplatively. “Or maybe you can sense other Affected.”

* * *

Anya slammed the door behind her as she walked into the apartment, tossing her keys onto the counter and shrugging off her jacket. She turned to her roommate, who sat on the sofa, seemingly oblivious to Anya’s return. “Hey Lexa.”

“Hmm?” Lexa barely lifted her gaze from the large book in her lap.

“Do you remember Lincoln?”

Lexa glanced up at this. “Indra’s nephew?”

“Yep,” Anya confirmed. “He also works at Gustus’s gym, but since you only go there at ungodly hours, you probably never run into him.” She held up her phone, which buzzed with an incoming text message. “And unlike you, I make an effort to keep in touch with people.” Lexa rolled her eyes. “Anyway, he’s coming over in an hour.”

“Lincoln? Why?”

Anya snorted. “Because we’re friends and I invited him. It’s been a while since we last hung out.”

Lexa frowned and returned to her book. Apart from going to and from work and the gym, she had been reluctant to venture much outside their apartment since the night of the Mist. She’d hoped that by avoiding people and stress as much as possible, her…problem…might simply fade into the background and she could ignore it. That was easier said than done, however, considering she worked as a police detective. The fact that she could now tase a suspect with her bare hands was less than comforting.

People like her had already been rounded up, and still were, never to be seen again. The _Affected_ – the term made her cringe – were perceived as dangerous. _And perhaps for good reason_ , Lexa thought. She hadn’t fully tested the extent of her new abilities – despite Anya’s insistence that she needed to ‘try zapping some shit,’ Lexa had avoided purposely conjuring the electricity ( _Conjuring, Lexa? Really? Don’t be ridiculous._ ) – but she had a feeling that she was more powerful and dangerous than either she or Anya realized. Not that she was keen on finding out anytime soon.

Anya’s voice over her shoulder drew Lexa from her musings. “What are you reading?”

Lexa slammed the book shut, tossing it onto the sofa beside her and out of Anya’s line of view. “Nothing. How was work?”

Smirking, Anya reached past her and grabbed the book, grunting a little at its weight. “A textbook?” she asked, turning it around to look at the cover. “ _Delmar’s Standard Textbook of Electricity_ ,” she read, and raised an eyebrow at her roommate.

Lexa pursed her lips, stood, and walked into the kitchen. She grabbed a glass from the cupboard and a carton of orange juice from the fridge and poured some for herself. “I just thought it might help me understand…” she trailed off, taking a slow sip. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

Anya tossed the book down. “Lexa-”

Lexa shook her head and Anya stopped talking, knowing when her friend did or didn’t need to be pushed.

“Have you eaten?”

Anya moved to lean against the kitchen counter. “Are you cooking?”

Glad for the change of subject, Lexa returned to the fridge and removed a package of uncooked pasta, giving it a shake as she flashed Anya a small smile.

\--

Lincoln arrived just as Lexa finished pouring a mixture of chicken, vegetables, and sauce over the pasta. She dished up three plates of it as Anya went to let him in, and heard them greet one another in the entryway before footsteps sounded in her direction.

“Lexa,” Lincoln smiled as he rounded the corner into the dining room. “It’s been a long time.” He reached out to pull her into a quick, one-armed hug once she’d set the plates on the table.

“Nice to see you again, Lincoln,” Lexa said, careful to keep her high-voltage hands to herself. She wasn’t much one for physical affection _before_ everything happened, so she was even less inclined to it now. When Lincoln pulled away a moment later, Lexa took a subtle step back.

“All right,” Anya clapped her hands together and pulled out a chair. “Let’s eat.”

Dinner was spent catching up, discussing Lincoln’s personal training job, Anya’s work under Indra in the private security sector, some of Lexa’s more interesting cases. Any commentary regarding the Mist two months earlier was distinctly absent from the conversation.

Once they were finished, Anya shooed Lexa out of the kitchen so she and Lincoln could clean up, and when Lincoln mention speaking to Anya alone, Lexa quietly excused herself to her bedroom, textbook tucked firmly under her arm.

“So what is this about?” Anya queried as she and Lincoln dropped onto the couch, each clutching a can of beer from the fridge.

“I needed to talk to someone,” he explained, clasping his hands around the can. “I thought I might be able to trust you.”

“Okay,” Anya drawled. “And you don’t want Lexa to know about whatever this is because…?”

Lincoln sighed and turned his gaze to the blank TV. “She’s a cop, Anya.”

Anya’s eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline. “Yeah, but she’s also Lexa,” she countered. “Are you going to tell me _you’re_ in trouble with the law? Because I’m gonna have a hard time believing that.”

Lincoln shook his head. “No, it’s not that, exactly. It’s just this situation…” he hesitated.

“Why aren’t you talking to Indra about this?” Anya asked, frowning. “She raised you. And practically me, for that matter. Are you saying you can’t trust her?”

“Of course I can trust her. I just don’t want to burden her with this. But I need to tell _someone_. It’s driving me mad.”

“Oh, so you’ll burden _me_ , then?” she teased, and was proud to see that she’d drawn a smile out of him. “Okay, fine, spit it out. Did you get a girl pregnant or something? Need me to take care of it?”

Lincoln nudged her knee with his own, chuckling. “Anya, I’m twenty-six, not sixteen. And you know I’m not dating anyone,” he added. His eyes were roaming around the apartment as he spoke, as though he was searching for something.

“Don’t need to be dating someone to knock them up,” she retorted. “What are you looking for?”

Anya watched as he set his beer down and got up from the couch to walk over to the kitchen window. She opened her mouth to question him when he grabbed the wilting coleus plant off the windowsill and brought it back to the living room, settling it on the table there. “If you’re about to lecture me on plant care, don’t bother. Lexa’s the one who bought that thing, and I told her-”

She almost choked on the end of her sentence, staring incredulously as the coleus began flourishing instantly beneath Lincoln’s outstretched hand. She shot up off the couch before he could say anything, shaking her head and fighting back a smirk, and Lincoln eyed her warily, concerned she might be taking the revelation badly. But then she allowed the smile to slip through and held out a staying hand, saying, “Hold on, wait. This is something Lexa should definitely be involved in,” and took off down the hall.

“Anya, wait-” Lincoln called, but she was already at Lexa’s door, pounding a hard and insistent fist against it. She nearly knocked Lexa in the forehead when the door swung open abruptly to reveal her disgruntled roommate.

“ _What?_ ”

Anya didn’t answer, merely grabbing Lexa by the wrist and dragging her back to the living room with her, where an anxious Lincoln still sat on the sofa, gripping too tightly to his sweating beer can. She gently shoved Lexa down next to him and then sat on her other side.

“Show her.”

Lincoln shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “Anya…”

“Just do it,” she pressed, ignoring Lexa’s confused glances between the two of them.

With a resigned sigh, Lincoln held out his free hand again, keeping his eyes on Lexa as the plant grew once more under his silent command.

Lexa stared, wide-eyed, and raised both of her hands as soon as he’d retracted his. For the first time in weeks, she allowed the electricity to crackle between her fingers and then up her forearms – and it felt surprisingly _good_. Her eyes began to glow an electric blue that had Lincoln and Anya’s jaws dropping as they leaned cautiously away from the sparks.

After a minute, Lexa stopped, and the room went piercingly silent, until Lincoln breathed out a “Wow.”

“So, my two best friends are Affected,” Anya observed. “What are the odds?”

Lexa shrugged and ran a hand through her loose, curly hair. “How should we know? The news doesn’t tell us anything. All I have been told at work is to attempt to apprehend any _Affected_ we come across and call the federal authorities if we do,” she said, grimacing at the mention of feds. “I have had to be painstakingly cautious every day for two months now, to avoid becoming a science experiment. Or a dead woman. At this point, I would do anything to get some answers.”

“I know what you mean,” Lincoln agreed, bobbing his head. He took a sip of beer. “I want to understand why only certain people were affected by the Mist, why I can suddenly communicate with plants like they’re people.” He sighed, “These changes, the abilities… They’re just…”

“Inhuman,” Lexa finished.

\--

As Lincoln ambled around the gym setting up training equipment for his shift, he reflected on last night’s conversation with his friends. It was nice, he thought, to finally have people to talk to about this. Even better having someone to relate to. Though now he also had some else’s safety to worry about, even though Lexa was more than capable of taking care of herself.

Honestly, he sometimes really enjoyed being able to do what he did, but if the whole situation suddenly went away, he didn’t think he would complain.

Done with set up, Lincoln went to warm up and do a few reps on the pull up bar. Gustus was locked in his office with lunch and paperwork, and his first client for the day wasn’t due for another hour and a half, so he figured he’d get his own workout in while the place was still dead between the morning and afternoon busy hours.

They did sometimes get a few people in during lunchtime, though, so he wasn’t surprised when he heard the front door open and close a while later, and he dropped down from the bar to go greet whichever one of their many regulars it was.

Except it wasn’t a regular. It was an unfamiliar young woman with long, dark hair and hazel eyes that admired his sweat-dampened muscles unabashedly. She was beautiful, and Lincoln had to stop himself from staring. If she were here, Anya would probably have teased him endlessly about this girl being exactly his type.

“Hey. Welcome to Ton DC Gym.” He held out a hand for her to shake. “I’m Lincoln.”

She grinned, gaze sweeping up and down his body one last time before meeting his own. “Octavia.”

“Nice to meet you, Octavia,” Lincoln said, smiling. “Is there anything I can help you with, or are you just here to use the equipment?”

Octavia propped her fists on her hips, straightening her spine determinedly. Bellamy had been dead set against this from the moment she’d brought it up weeks earlier, but she was done indulging his overprotective nature. She loved her brother more than anyone, but she was twenty-two years old, a grown ass woman, and she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to do what _she_ wanted to do. And it didn’t hurt that she had superhuman strength and skin like steel – she could protect herself.

Octavia squared her shoulders. “I wanna learn how to fight.”

She expected more surprise or maybe disbelief on Lincoln’s part. His warm, approving smile was reassuring. Not that she needed the reassurance, but it was nice to have.

“Well, I have about an hour before my first client for personal training gets here. Would you like to start now?”

“Hell yeah. Let’s do this.”

* * *

Raven slumped onto her couch and proceeded to heave out a few wheezing coughs as her best friend busied himself making coffee in her kitchen, even though he had his own coffeemaker in his own apartment two floors up. He’d claimed to have run out, but Raven knew it was just because she tended to spring for the better coffee beans.

She continued to hack up a lung as she lay there and Finn frowned, staring at her from his seat on the kitchen counter. “Are you okay? That cough doesn’t sound good.”

Raven groaned and dragged a throw pillow over her face. “I can’t imagine why not. I’ve been practicing it all damn night.”

“Sorry,” Finn said, chuckling as he grabbed his travel mug. “I have to get going. Thanks for the coffee. And try to get some rest.”

A muffled “Can’t” came from beneath the pillow, and Raven tossed it aside as she continued, “I have to go to work.”

“What? No you don’t,” Finn protested, pausing at the door. “You need to call in sick.”

“Can’t,” Raven repeated. She sat up slowly and used her fingers to comb flyaway hairs out of her face. “I have bills and college debt and grad school tuition to pay.”

Finn rolled his eyes. “Raven, you can miss one day. It won’t kill you. In fact, _going to work_ might actually kill you, in this state.” He waved a hand in a gesture that encompassed her bloodshot eyes down to the bent knees tucked tightly against her heaving chest, raising a challenging eyebrow at her.

Raven waved him off. “I’ll be fine. It’s not as bad as it seems.” The hacking cough that followed her declaration didn’t help convince him in the slightest.

Finn sighed and opened the door, knowing he wouldn’t be changing her mind anytime soon. “Okay, fine,” he relented. “Just try not to die. Or at least remember this preemptive ‘I told you so’ when you’re suffocating to death on exhaust fumes.” He ducked the throw pillow sent flying his way, using the door as a shield, but it hit him anyway, bouncing directly off his face.

“Show some sympathy, you jerk.”

He laughed. “I will, as soon as you start taking better care of yourself. Too bad you can only fix machines with those fancy superpowers of yours.”

This time, he was out of the apartment and shutting the door before the pillow could reach him.

\--

After downing some cold medicine and taking a much-needed steamy shower, Raven left her apartment and drove to the auto shop where she worked. Her pockets were stuffed with cough drops she’d picked up from the convenience store next door, and she popped one after another as she opened up the shop. She turned on the lights and ‘Open’ signs without even touching the switches, pleased to be given free rein of the place while her boss was on vacation.

Even sick, she found comfort in being surrounded by machinery. Raven had loved tinkering with and fixing things for as long as she could remember. Working at the shop was a good way for her to financially support herself through earning her PhD in mechanical engineering while doing something she enjoyed.

She spent the next hour working on a clunky sedan that had been dropped off the day before. It took her less than fifteen minutes to fix the problem the guy had brought it in for, but she took some time to improve a few other things, as well. It was a rather unsuccessful attempt to keep her mind off the aching in her lungs, though at least the car was better off when she was done.

As Raven stood and ran her hand along the hood of the vehicle, reveling in the sound of its engine roaring beautifully in response to her touch, she was startled by a voice from behind her.

“That’s an interesting talent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned last time that most everyone's abilities are based on those of an Inhuman character from the Marvel comics. I still haven't introduced all of the superpowered characters in this fic yet, but I thought I'd put up the comparisons of the ones that have appeared at this point, since I said that I would do so. Maybe it will interest people, maybe not, but I figured you could use this information to learn a little more about people's abilities if you're curious. They won't be exactly the same, considering the characters in this story have only had their abilities for a short while and are thus inexperienced, but it's close enough to get a better understanding if needed/desired:
> 
> Clarke is the only one with powers not based on any particular character, I just picked and chose what I wanted for her, but I guess she's similar to certain versions of Jean Grey, though she's a Mutant, not an Inhuman. Lexa's powers are based on those of Nahrees, Raven is similar to Hard-Drive, minus the cyborg element of course, Octavia is based on Alaris, Bellamy on Crystal (sort of/loosely), Lincoln on Jolen, and Monty on Dinesh Deol/Grid. Let me know if you have any questions!
> 
> P.S. Don't fret, Clarke and Lexa will be meeting in the next chapter. Probably. I don't control these things.


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to get one more chapter up before I start classes tomorrow, so here it is. And it kind of got away from me, so it's also super long, but hopefully it will tide you all over until I can update again, and hopefully you enjoy it. Thanks for all the comments, bookmarks, and kudos so far - they're greatly appreciated!

Clarke loved her car. Sure, at around a decade old it was nothing special, objectively speaking. But it had belonged to her father, before his death – he had taught her to drive in that car – and it held significant sentimental value to her now. Her mom had offered numerous times over the years to buy her a new one, even though Clarke _could_ afford to buy her own – it’s just that she didn’t want to. She loved her car. Even though it sometimes had problems a ten year old car probably shouldn’t be having.

Like that strange clicking noise she’d been hearing anytime her car was in ‘Drive’ for the past two days. Clarke groaned.

“Fine, fine. I’ll take you to a shop. Are you happy?” she grumbled to the otherwise empty car. It, of course, neither heard nor responded to her. Clarke sighed and called up directions to the nearest mechanic on her phone’s GPS.

She had the day off from the café, and had only been planning to run errands that morning, anyway. The paintings she’d be contributing to the upcoming gallery she was planning were finished, said gallery planning was to be wrapped up that afternoon, her dress for the event was waiting for her at the dry cleaner’s, and she was in desperate need of groceries. But first she had to get her stupid – loveable – car fixed, so Clarke detoured her trip to the dry cleaner and drove a few blocks West to Sinclair’s Zero G Mechanics.

Pulling into the small lot, Clarke easily found a parking spot. It was still early enough that the place wasn’t busy, or maybe this shop was never busy, she didn’t know. It had good enough ratings on Yelp.

She shut off the car and got out, twirling the key ring once around her finger before hitting the lock button and dropping them into the pocket of her jacket, then made her way to the shop’s main entrance. The electronic bell on the glass door emitted a two-tone signal announcing her arrival as she pushed inside and looked around the small room for an employee.

It only took about a second for her to see that the place was empty, so Clarke hesitantly made her way toward the open door on her right, stepping through to find herself in the spacious garage that adjoined the small office.

The two large garage doors were both closed, save for a foot-high gap between each one and the concrete floor, letting some cool air in but leaving most of the space dimly lit. The only source of bright light came from the car jack at the far end of the garage, which Clarke could see had been lowered so that the car attached to it was resting fully on the ground. The sounds of clanking tools and a few coughs led her in that direction.

When she rounded the other car jacks, Clarke spotted a woman with a dark ponytail, grease-stained red overalls, and a leg brace standing near the hood of the car she’d seen upon walking in, which appeared to be about twice as old as her own.

For some reason, Clarke found herself pausing for a minute to watch the woman work, staring curiously as she reached out her right hand and pressed it to the hood, as though admiring what appeared to be just a hunk of junk. But as her hand made contact, the vehicle suddenly roared to life, seemingly of its own accord, and Clarke felt her eyebrows shoot up into her hairline. Sufficiently intrigued, it only took her a few seconds to find what she was looking for inside the woman’s mind.

“That’s an interesting talent,” she called out over the sound of the rumbling engine.

The woman startled, spinning around on her right heel and fixing her intruder with eyes narrowed in suspicion. “I’m sorry?” Her tone distinctly lacked anything remotely related to welcoming and her left hand was clutching tightly to a hefty wrench, and Clarke found herself instantly regretting sneaking up on the woman.

“Um,” Clarke stammered. “Sorry. I just-” She paused, took a breath, and continued. “You started that car just by touching it.” The woman opened her mouth, probably to deny it, but Clarke continued before she could. “You’re Affected.” The woman’s grip on her wrench tightened noticeably at that, so Clarke hastily added, “Wait, it’s okay! I am, too. It’s how I sensed you were like me.”

“Sensed?” the woman replied skeptically, prompting Clarke to launch into an explanation of her abilities. A demonstration of her telekinesis earned her enough trust for the mechanic to drop the wrench and tell her own story.

Raven, as it turned out, was a technopath, capable of manipulating electronics and machinery telepathically. Clarke was also the first Affected she’d actually met.

Not much in the mood or condition to stand any longer, Raven led Clarke back into the front office and gestured for her to take a seat in one of the chairs behind the desk before popping her ninth cough drop of the hour as she sat in the other. She snagged a tissue from the box on the desk and blew her nose. “So, I’d shake your hand, but I’m guessing you’d rather not,” she said, tossing the used tissue and showing Clarke her grease-blackened hands. “It’s nice to meet you, though, Clarke.”

Clarke chuckled. “Likewise, Raven.”

Raven pumped some sanitizer from a nearby bottle to disinfect her hands anyway, groaning as the last of her lozenge dissolved away and a cough immediately began to tickle at the back of her throat. “Ugh, this sucks,” she moaned. “I never get sick.”

Clarke frowned contemplatively. “Maybe the Mist somehow weakened our immune systems? I’ve been sick twice in the last two months.”

“Maybe,” Raven shrugged. The conversation stalled for a moment as she coughed and then unwrapped another cough drop. She’d have to pick up more during her lunch break. “So, uh, I’m guessing you didn’t come here looking for me? Not that I’d be surprised about that, because, I mean, I’m pretty damn hot. But this _is_ an auto repair shop.”

“Right,” Clarke laughed. “Sorry. I am actually having car troubles. When I drive, there’s this… clicking noise?”

Clarke and Raven chatted idly about their careers in the ten minutes it took Raven to pull Clarke’s car into the garage, find the problem, and fix it.

“Wow,” Clarke said, impressed. “Thank you, Raven.”

Raven waved a dismissive hand and moved to lean against the hood of Clarke’s car. “No problem. Just doin’ my job.” She paused to cough into her elbow and then withdraw another cough drop from her pocket. “And I enjoy the work.”

“Even when you’re sick?”

Raven shrugged. “Someone’s gotta work while the boss is away.”

They went back to the front office so Clarke could pay her bill, and she lingered a bit after Raven had passed her keys back to her. Raven was an engineering student, but Clarke figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask, “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone with access to DNA analysis equipment, would you?”

Raven raised an eyebrow.

“It’s just that my friend Monty and I want to find out if there’s a genetic component to this whole Affected thing,” Clarke elaborated. “He’s Affected, too. Something about manipulating the electromagnetic spectrum.”

Raven shook her head. “Sorry, no. But if you find a lab, I could probably get us access to it and the equipment.” She raised a hand and wiggled the fingers in explanation.

“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind,” Clarke laughed. She jangled her keys in her palm, half turning to leave, then stopped. “Hey, let me give you my number,” she said, grabbing a pen and notepad off the counter and jotting her name and number down before sliding it across to Raven. “If you ever feel like hanging out with me and Monty. Sometimes it’s nice to talk to someone who understands, you know?”

“Right. Thanks.”

“Well, I have some work to do, and I’m sure you do too, so I’ll see you later Raven,” Clarke told her. She returned to her car – now blessedly click-free – and headed to the dry cleaner.

* * *

Octavia had been frequenting Ton DC Gym for about a week now, and she was pleased – and maybe a bit smug – to note that she and Lincoln had really hit it off, beyond what was perhaps appropriate for a trainer and their client, though that relationship was proving quite successful, too. Despite putting significant energy into pulling back on her strength, she found that she was learning quite a lot from Lincoln as far as good fighting techniques went.

They were warming up for their midweek session when she heard Lincoln clear his throat behind her, and she turned around to see his eyes quickly darting away to stare at nothing on the far wall. Octavia flashed a teasing grin he didn’t see. When he could meet her eyes again, he said, “I can’t help but notice that you were pretty fit even before we started this. And your fighting style suggests you already had some skills I didn’t have to teach you. Is there a story there? Another gym?”

Octavia smiled at him and glanced around the room. The gym was empty, as it usually was when she came in, but she wasn’t sure how much she wanted to tell Lincoln yet, so she decided on an excuse that wasn’t a complete lie. “Just needed a change of scenery,” she shrugged, bending at the waist to pick up some dumbbells for bicep curls. They were much too light to be effective against her enhanced strength, but she pretended to make an effort anyway.

In reality, she had left her old gym for a number of reasons, the most important being the fact that Bellamy knew or was friends with nearly everyone who worked at or frequented the place, and if she had asked anyone there to teach her how to fight better, her brother would have caught wind of it immediately. Octavia also knew that she was too familiar there, so any aggressive changes to or sudden increases in her fitness routine on account of her newfound strength would inevitably be noticed. Switching gyms had been her best bet.

Thankfully, Lincoln seemed to accept her response, and after finishing their warm ups he led her to the training mats near the back of the gym.

“I thought we’d practice some flips today. You know, throwing someone over your shoulder or gaining the upper hand if you’re grappling on the ground. Sound good?”

“Yeah, sounds great,” Octavia replied, and clapped her hands together eagerly.

At Octavia’s insistence that she could take it, Lincoln demonstrated first by throwing Octavia over his shoulder with as little force as he could manage. After a bit more coaching, they decided she was ready to try it on him, and they moved into the appropriate positions, Lincoln coming up behind her the way an opponent or attacker might as Octavia reached back to grab onto him.

Bellamy often chastised her for not thinking things through, and had he been there to do so now, Octavia thinks she might not have even argued him on that point. So caught up was she in executing the maneuver perfectly, Octavia didn’t focus enough on suppressing her strength, and when she bent her knees and yanked Lincoln over her shoulder, she very nearly broke her trainer against the floor. A last-second course correction, twisting her body to land with him in hopes of softening the blow, was likely the only thing that saved him from needing a trip to the ER.

As Lincoln wheezed the breath out of his lungs following impact, Octavia sat up quickly, frantically assessing him for serious injuries.

“Shit! Are you okay, Lincoln?” Her fingers slid down his ribcage while Lincoln caught his breath. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m okay,” Lincoln coughed, finally sitting up. Octavia pulled back, sitting on her heels. “I guess I didn’t realize just how… _strong_ … you are.”

He was eyeing her strangely as he said that, and Octavia was seriously considering knocking him over the head and running away (it’s not like Lincoln knew where she lived, and hey, maybe Bellamy wouldn’t mind a sudden move across the country if it meant she wouldn’t have to become the science experiment du jour) but then he was lifting an upturned palm in the space between their faces and she was watching with wide eyes as a white lily seemed to grow from the very cells of his skin. Octavia’s jaw dropped.

“You’re…”

Lincoln nodded, taking the lily with his other hand and tucking it gently behind her ear. He seemed nervous, wary, and Octavia thought he might be unsure about her own status as an Affected or not. Couldn’t be too careful these days, as anyone who watched the news could tell you.

Hoping to assuage his worries, Octavia hastily added, “Me too.” Their subsequent matching grins helped calm her racing heart, and she could tell Lincoln was breathing easier now, too. After a minute, Octavia’s grin turned sheepish. “Sorry about the whole Hulk smash thing.”

Lincoln shook his head dismissively as he leaned back, unsuccessfully concealing a wince at the movement. There was probably some serious bruising going on already. “It’s okay, Octavia. But maybe in the future our training will have to be a little less practical and a little more show-and-tell,” he suggested lightly.

Octavia chuckled. “Right. Yeah.” She licked her lips, reaching up to stroke one of the petals on the lily behind her ear. “So you can… grow plants?”

Lincoln shrugged, smiling. “Yeah, I guess. It’s like I can manipulate plants telepathically,” he explained. “And I’m guessing you have super strength?”

“It sounds kind of dorky when you say it like that,” Octavia laughed. She pushed herself to her feet, and Lincoln watched from the ground as she walked over to the rack holding about fifteen sets of dumbbells of varying weights and spread her arms out to grip either side of it. He remembered Gustus struggling just to carry the heavy metal rack alone, but Octavia seemed to be able to lift the whole thing, rack plus weights, with ease.

Lincoln gave an impressed whistle as she set the rack back down.

“I also have, like, crazy durable skin,” Octavia told him, brushing her hands together. At Lincoln’s curious expression, she jogged over to the gym’s front desk, grabbed a pen, and jogged back to him, dropping cross-legged to the floor in front of him. “Watch.”

Lincoln yelped in surprise when Octavia held up her left palm and swiftly brought the point of the pen down onto it with her right hand, expecting to see some kind of cinematic spurting of blood, but the cheap plastic pen only bent in half with the force.

“Uh… Wow.”

Octavia nodded proudly. “I kind of lied before,” she confessed, dropping the busted pen so she could fiddle with the lily still tucked behind her ear. “The real reason I came to this gym was to avoid my stupidly overprotective brother finding out about the fight training. After we were Affected, he seemed to become even more protective of me. Even though I’m way less vulnerable now than I was before,” she grumbled.

Lincoln pulled her hand away from the lily before she mutilated it, lacing his fingers with hers. “He’s probably just scared. There are people out there who want to hurt or capture people like us. I wouldn’t fault him too much for being careful.”

“Yeah,” Octavia sighed. “I guess.”

Lincoln stroked his thumb over hers for a minute as he worked up the nerve to ask his next question. “Hey. I was wondering if… you’d like to go on a date sometime? With me.”

Octavia looked up then, a smile spreading slowly across her face. “I’d love to.”

* * *

When she walked into the gym the next day, Octavia found Lincoln hunched over a notebook behind the front desk as some guy she didn’t know did pull ups at the other end of the room. With his back to the door, Lincoln didn’t seem to notice her, so Octavia slipped quietly up behind him and peered over his shoulder.

From this angle, she could see the pencil in his right hand, which scratched lightly across the thick paper as he sketched what turned out to be a surprisingly good likeness of Octavia herself.

“Wow, Lincoln, that’s amazing.”

Lincoln jumped, dropping the notepad on the desk as he swiveled around in his chair. “Octavia. Sorry, I-”

Octavia waved away the apology. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I’m flattered. Seriously.”

Lincoln grinned and rubbed the top of his head. “Do you like art?” he blurted, then shook his head, amending, “I mean, there’s a new gallery showing tomorrow night, at this place I’ve been wanting to go to. And I thought, if you liked art, maybe we could go? On our date. And then maybe have a nice dinner afterwards?”

Octavia thought about it. She wouldn’t say she was an art connoisseur, per se, unless one considered pastries art – in which case Bellamy should really appreciate her frequent visits to the bakeshop near their apartment more – but she wasn’t opposed to it at all, especially if it meant getting to spend more time with Lincoln and learn more about his interests. So with a shrug and a smile, she told him, “Sure. Why not?”

* * *

Octavia was lounging in her bedroom later that evening when she heard Bellamy stomping through the apartment as he returned from his post-work workout. He didn’t sound very pleased, so she decided to remain safely in her room until after he’d cooled down about whatever it was that had set him off, or until she became hungry for dinner, whichever came first.

Unfortunately, her brother seemed to have other ideas, because the heavy footsteps began to move down the hallway, closer and closer until her door suddenly swung open with more force than necessary.

“Hey!” Octavia barked, sitting up and slinging a pillow that hit him smack in the chest. “Knock much?”

Bellamy just kicked the pillow aside and glared at her as he stalked up to her bed. “When were you going to tell me that you stopped going to Atom’s gym?” he practically growled. “Or that you decided to go to another gym and learn how to fight?”

Octavia clenched her fists. “How-?”

“Atom says you haven’t been by in weeks. And Murphy said he saw you at that Ton DC place practicing hardcore fighting tactics with some guy who was all over you.”

“What, you have your friends spying on me?” she retorted angrily.

“That’s not the point, Octavia. You shouldn’t be fighting. With _anyone_. It’s not safe.”

“What’s not _safe_ ,” she hissed, “is me not knowing _how_ to fight. And what I do in my free time is none of your business, Bellamy. I’m an adult, and you’re not the boss of me. Not to mention the fact that I’m basically fucking indestructible. So get off my back.”

Bellamy clenched his jaw, not seeming to notice that his balled fists had suddenly burst into flame. “You don’t know that for sure, Octavia! You can’t just walk around acting like no one can hurt you!”

“They _can’t_ ,” she yelled back, swiping the pocketknife off her nightstand and slicing the blade along her forearm, to no avail. She tossed the knife aside and thrust her unmarred arm up as evidence, glaring angrily. “I’m not stupid, Bell. I know how to be careful in public. And Lincoln, my trainer, is a _good person_. And he’s _safe_. He’s Affected, too, which you’d know if you ever bothered to _ask_ me about my personal life instead of yelling at me.” She reached back to her nightstand and grabbed the vase she’d placed Lincoln’s lily in the day before, hurling it at Bellamy in an explanation he wouldn’t understand, but she didn’t care. Water splashed out and doused his flaming fists as the glass bounced off his chest and shattered against her hardwood flooring.

“Personal life?” Bellamy echoed. His shirt and hands were dripping, but the flames didn’t come back, so she figured he was calming down some after her outburst.

“Yeah,” Octavia replied. “Lincoln asked me on a date tomorrow night.”

That was probably the wrong thing to say at this moment, she decided, watching her brother tense up again at the mention of the word ‘date.’ But something in her eyes must have convinced him to keep his mouth shut on the matter, which was just as well, Octavia thought, because he’d made an ass of himself enough for one day. She wouldn’t trade how close she and her brother were for the world, but sometimes that closeness led to explosive battles of will like the one they’d just had, and despite her general ‘fight me’ attitude, she’d really rather avoid those when she could.

“Fine,” Bellamy sighed after a moment, retreating back into the hallway. “I’ll call you when dinner’s ready,” he said, and pulled the door shut behind him.

* * *

Lincoln arrived to pick her up the next evening at 7:00, but Octavia didn’t hear the knock at the apartment door over the sound of her music as she finished getting ready, leaving Bellamy to answer the door, wearing a glare that might have scared off anyone with a weaker will. Lincoln stood his ground.

He shifted the flowers he was holding to his left hand and held out his right for Bellamy to shake. “Hi. I’m Lincoln.”

Bellamy took it, grip bordering on too tight before he let go. “Bellamy.” He eyed Lincoln for a moment, gaze hard, before his attention dropped to the bouquet in Lincoln’s hand. “So you can make plants grow, huh?” he asked, though his voice lacked any genuine curiosity.

Lincoln bobbed his head. “That’s right. Octavia told you about me?”

Nodding once, Bellamy tried his hardest to affect an intimidating demeanor, despite Lincoln’s seemingly unruffled attitude thus far. “If you hurt her, I will turn you into the first human forest fire,” he vowed gruffly. “Got it?”

Octavia interrupted them then. “Bell! Stop threatening my date.” She pushed past Bellamy and reached up to peck Lincoln on the cheek, taking the flowers from him as she did. “These are beautiful, Lincoln. Thanks.” Spinning around, Octavia thrust the bouquet into her brother’s face and said, voice saccharine, “Put these in water for me, will you, big brother?”

Bellamy grumbled, but took them anyway, taking a step back so they were no longer all crowded in the doorway. “Fine,” he said, and leaned forward to press a kiss to the top of Octavia’s head. “Have a good time.”

Octavia could tell he actually meant it, so she threw him a genuine smile over her shoulder as she tugged Lincoln down the hallway, seeing Bellamy smile softly in return before shutting the door.

Lincoln drove them to the art gallery first, telling her he’d set up 8:00 reservations at a restaurant only a block away. They found parking closer to the restaurant than the gallery, and walked back the short distance hand in hand.

When they arrived, the gallery was already crowded with people, though not excessively so, and Lincoln explained that it was a fairly popular place as far as art went, not counting DC’s numerous famed museums, of course. And Octavia had to admit, a lot of the paintings and sculptures they saw were a lot more interesting than she’d been expecting. There were no piles of trash or red streaks on a blank canvas, but rather a lot of things that Octavia found she could actually comprehend. The place had a nice atmosphere that she found relieving after worrying she’d hate the whole event.

Mostly, though, she was enjoying seeing Lincoln enjoy it all. Octavia may not be super into art, but she _was_ super into Lincoln.

They’d been wandering for about fifteen minutes when they came across a blonde in a knee-length black dress, who stopped to greet them with a curious smile. Octavia figured she must work at the gallery, because somehow she and Lincoln ended up following the woman as she gave them a personal tour through the rest of the building, chatting idly with Lincoln as they went.

Eventually, they ended up in a relatively secluded corner of the gallery, and Octavia briefly wondered if something shady was about go down, before dismissing the ridiculous thought with a shake of her head.

Except then the blonde turned to them and said four words that made Octavia and Lincoln freeze simultaneously. “I know you’re Affected.” Octavia was ready to punch her through the wall and make a break for it with Lincoln when the woman hastily added, “It’s okay. I am too. It’s how I sensed that you two were.”

Octavia felt Lincoln’s hand tighten around hers as she raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”

The blonde nodded emphatically. “My name’s Clarke, by the way. I’m the one who put on the gallery tonight.” She held out her hand, and waited until Lincoln and Octavia returned hesitant handshakes.

“How did you sense us?” Lincoln wondered, voice low despite the echoing noise of the gallery masking their conversation.

Clarke tapped her temple. “Mind reader. Amongst other things.”

Octavia could tell Lincoln was as impressed as she was, and she had to force herself not to do the tacky thing and ask Clarke to say what she was thinking right now. Instead, she settled with an appropriately awed, “Nice.”

Clarke reached into the clutch she was holding in her left hand and withdrew a couple of matte black business cards. “I have some other Affected friends,” she told them. “And we’re working together to learn more about what happened to us. If you’re interested in meeting up to talk more, you should give me a call.” Clarke let go of the cards before Lincoln and Octavia could take them from her, and both stared with wide eyes as the cards remained hovering in the air between them. She grinned when they finally reached out and grabbed the cards at her insistence. “I have to get back to the gallery, but,” she gestured to the cards, “you have my number,” she said, and walked away, heels clicking in her wake.

“Well, that was interesting,” Octavia commented, gazing down at the fancy business card in her hand.

They left for dinner shortly after.

* * *

It was late by the time Lexa finished her paperwork and headed home. She tossed her keys and bag aside as soon as she walked through the apartment door and made a beeline for the fridge, pulling out some leftover takeout to heat for dinner. She sat quietly at the kitchen counter while she ate – alone, because it was a Friday night and Anya was probably out, or maybe still working, if she was unlucky enough to be saddled with another night job. Either way, she was enjoying the solitary peace and quiet.

Lexa had just stuffed a forkful of noodles into her mouth when she heard a knock at her door. Sighing, she slid off the barstool and went to see who it was, expecting to find her elderly neighbor searching for her lost cat again. Honestly, Mrs. Mulligan really needed to remember to shut the door.

She was surprised when she looked through the peephole and saw Lincoln there instead. Lexa greeted him with a polite smile as she pulled the door open to let him in. “Lincoln. How did you get inside the building?”

Lincoln looked sheepish, rubbing the back of his shaved head as Lexa shut the door behind him. “I followed somebody in,” he confessed. “Sorry. I hope it’s okay that I’ve stopped by.”

Lexa shrugged. She had kind of been hoping to have a quiet night to herself, but as far as unexpected visitors went, mild-mannered Lincoln was certainly one of the better options. “It’s fine, Lincoln. I just finished my dinner.” She returned to the kitchen and tossed her mostly empty takeout container in the trash and her fork in the sink. “Unfortunately, Anya is not here. I think she is out with Gustus and some other friends tonight.”

“You didn’t want to go out with them?” Lincoln wondered.

“I only got off work about half an hour ago. Not really in the mood tonight.”

“Tough case?”

“Just a long one.” Lexa leaned her hip against the kitchen counter, glancing down to realize she hadn’t taken her boots off when she got home, and didn’t much feel up to doing it now, either. “Do you want me to tell Anya you stopped by?”

Lincoln looked confused by the question. “Oh, no, actually, I came to see you. Honestly, I kind of didn’t expect anyone to be home at this time on a Friday night, but…” Lincoln shook his head. “Sorry, you must be exhausted. Do you want me to go?”

Lexa was surprised he had come to see her and not Anya, considering she hadn’t been the most communicative friend lately, but she didn’t show it. “No, Lincoln, you can stay. Really, it’s not a problem. Would you like something to drink?” she offered.

“Water’s fine. Thanks, Lexa.”

Lexa grabbed them each a glass of water and led Lincoln into the living room. As they settled on the sofa she remembered something Anya had mentioned the day before. “Oh. You had a date tonight, didn’t you? How did that go?”

Lincoln’s expression brightened considerably. “It was great. I really like Octavia. I’ve only known her for about a week, but… She’s amazing. I think you’d like her, Lexa.” He paused and took a gulp of water. “Actually, the date is kind of why I’m here.” Lexa merely raised a curious eyebrow, so Lincoln continued, telling her about the revelation of Octavia having abilities, about the art gallery and meeting Clarke. When he finished, he pulled Clarke’s card from his wallet and passed it to Lexa.

“She said that she and some Affected friends are trying to learn more about the Mist and how it changed us. Invited me and Octavia to meet up this weekend and talk about it more. You should come, too.”

Lexa stared down at the business card, looking doubtful. “I don’t know, Lincoln. We don’t really know this Clarke. Or her friends.”

Lincoln nodded understandingly. “I know. But Clarke seemed okay. And you _did_ want answers, Lexa.”

“Okay,” Lexa sighed, nodded her head. She waved the card between her fingers. “But first, let me look into this Clarke Griffin. Just to be safe.”

“Thanks, Lexa. I really think this will be a good thing.”

Lincoln stayed long enough to finish his glass of water and then Lexa showed him out, telling him she’d let him know what, if anything, she found on Clarke Griffin.

* * *

Octavia slipped quietly into the apartment after Lincoln dropped her off, just in case Bellamy had gone to bed early like the old man he was. Well, really, he was only twenty-eight, but he had to get up early on weekdays to teach history at a local high school, so he would often turn in before midnight on Fridays to catch up on sleep, on the occasions he didn’t decide to go out with friends.

But when she stepped into the living room to toe off her heels and hang up her coat, she found her brother lounging on the couch, quietly observing her entrance as he sipped slowly from a bottle of beer.

“Hey, Bell,” she greeted. As she rounded the couch, Bellamy sat up and swung his feet down to the floor to make room for her to sit.

“How was your date?” he asked casually. Octavia could tell he was fishing for something to use as an ‘I told you so.’ She wasn’t going to give it to him.

There wasn’t anything, anyway. “It was great. Lincoln is an awesome guy, Bell. I think you’d like him if you could stop the overprotective ass routine long enough to have an actual conversation with him.”

Bellamy scoffed but didn’t respond, taking another swig of his beer.

Rolling her eyes, Octavia decided to put that topic to rest for the time being. “Anyway, guess what happened at that art gallery we went to.” She pulled Clarke’s card from her bag and held it out to Bellamy, who took it with his free hand.

“I still can’t believe _you_ went to an art show,” he said, flipping the card around so he could read it.

“It was actually pretty cool,” Octavia shrugged. “And anyway, that’s not the point.” She gestured to the business card.

Bellamy arched an eyebrow, confused. “Who’s Clarke Griffin?”

“She was the gallery organizer. And guess what, Bell. Turns out she’d Affected, too. She can _read minds_. Awesome, right?”

Bellamy’s other eyebrow rose to join the first, disappearing behind the dark hair curling over his forehead. “Impressive. And she gave you her card because…?”

“Linc and I are gonna meet up with her and her friends this weekend. They might have some answers for us about the whole superpowers thing.”

Bellamy shook his head and tossed the business card onto the coffee table. “No, Octavia. Absolutely not,” he protested. “You are not going to meet strange people with potential ulterior motives. You can’t just-”

“I _can_ and I _will_ ,” Octavia interrupted defiantly. “Come on, Bell. I wanna meet more people like us. And you should too. We should figure out what happened to us! Or do you want to keep stubbornly ignoring it all like you have been for the last two months?” She paused to breathe, and Bellamy remained silent, pensive. “I _know_ you’re curious, too.”

Bellamy clenched his jaw, shook his head. “It’s not a good idea, O. You don’t know these people.”

“Not _yet_ ,” Octavia countered. “You won’t stop me from going.”

Bellamy huffed, gripping his beer bottle tighter and rising from the couch. “Fine,” he ground out. “But I’m definitely going with.”

“Fine.” Octavia maintained her stubborn glare, but internally released a victorious cheer.

“I’m going to my room now,” he told her, moving to toss out the empty bottle. “I have papers to grade.”

Octavia settled into the couch and switched on the TV as Bellamy disappeared down the hallway.

* * *

She didn’t really need to go in to work that Saturday. Her paperwork was finished and she didn’t have any other open cases to tend to at the moment, but she had already gone on a ten mile run, showered, and cooked a hot breakfast, and sitting around the precinct doing nothing sounded a lot better than sitting around the apartment listening to Anya complain about the ‘hellish’ hangover she was nursing. So Lexa had swept Clarke Griffin’s business card off the dining table where she’d left it last night, grabbed her keys, and drove to work.

Roughly fifteen minutes later, she was sitting at her desk, staring at the card tucked into the corner of her computer screen as she waited for the severely out of date machine to boot up.

“Hey, Woods, what are you doing here?” he partner, Ryder, called, coming up behind her. “I though you completed all your reports last night?”

Lexa spun in her desk chair and looked up at him, flashing a half smile. She dropped it immediately when she noticed Quint leering at her from across the room, and threw the detective a sharp glare before turning back to her partner. “Just polishing up a few things,” she replied dismissively. “What about you? Done yet?”

Ryder chuckled. “Almost,” he said, and moved around to his desk where it sat opposite hers. “I’d better get back to it before the boss comes looking.”

Lexa gave a single nod and then turned back to her own computer. She input her login information and waited another minute for the home screen to load before pulling up the database they used for performing background checks.

Clarke Griffin, it seemed, had nothing more than a parking ticket to her name. Satisfied, Lexa switched to the Internet browser and typed in the website URL displayed at the bottom of the business card.

The page that came up when she hit Enter was minimalist but tastefully designed. The title read ‘Clarke Griffin Art and Design’ in a simple calligraphic script, and beneath the header were a basic description of the site’s contents and a brief biography about Clarke, accompanied by a photo of the artist herself.

She was beautiful, Lexa noted, and pretended not to acknowledge that the blonde was pretty much exactly her type, which Anya would attest was merely attractive and female, though Lexa would argue that there _were_ other contributing factors. Artistic and serious about her work certainly didn’t hurt. She pointedly did not think about how Costia had fit that description.

Shaking her head at the ridiculous turn her thoughts had taken, Lexa closed out of the website and logged off, staring thoughtfully at the card again. When the computer had shut down, she pushed herself from her chair, grabbed the card, and tucked it into her pocket along with her phone and keys.

“Going so soon?” Ryder asked.

“Yes. I have done about all that I can do.” Lexa waved goodbye to her partner and then left.

When she returned home, she found Anya in the kitchen, appearing to be in much better shape than she had been less than an hour ago. Her roommate was at the stove making vegetable stir fry for lunch, and she offered some to Lexa when she walked in.

Lexa accepted gratefully. “Thanks. I just need to make a phone call and then I’ll join you,” she said, and walked into the living room to get away from the loud sizzling noise of the pan as she tugged her phone from her pocket.

She dialed Lincoln’s number and held the phone to her ear. He picked up on the second ring.

“ _Hello?_ ”

“You sound out of breath,” Lexa observed. “Am I interrupting you at work?”

“ _Oh, no, it’s fine, Lexa. Just getting a quick workout in before Gustus gets back with lunch._ ”

“I’ll make this quick, then. I’ve just called to tell you that Clarke Griffin seems to check out okay. And I’d be willing to go with you to meet her and her friends.”

“ _Great,_ ” Lincoln replied. “ _I saved her number, so I’ll call to ask about a place and time._ ”

“Yes,” Lexa said. “Let me know.”

“ _Will do. Bye, Lexa._ ”

* * *

Clarke was in the midst of her biweekly pizza, beer, and movie night with Wells when the ringing of her phone cut through the dialogue of the B-list horror film they were more mocking than watching. Wells paused the movie as Clarke wiped her greasy fingers on her sweatpants and reached for the phone.

“Hello?”

“ _Is this Clarke Griffin?_ ” a deep voice asked.

Clarke pulled the phone away from her ear to check the caller ID, seeing only an unknown number. “Yes. May I ask who’s calling?”

“ _Oh, sorry. It’s Lincoln, from the gallery. I was there with my…my girlfriend, Octavia?_ ”

Clarke straightened in recognition. “Right! Lincoln, hey! I wasn’t sure if you’d call.” She was aware that Wells was staring at her curiously – she had neglected, perhaps purposely, to tell him that she’d met more Affected the night before, after the near-panic he’d had the last time – but she ignored him for the time being. Lincoln hadn’t responded to her comment, so she added, “Are you guys still interested in meeting up?”

“ _Yeah, absolutely,_ ” Lincoln replied. “ _That’s why I called, actually. Do you have a place and a time?_ ”

Clarke considered for a moment. “Would noon tomorrow work? We can just meet at the gallery again. There’s a back room we can use there. I’ll even buy lunch.” Wells was looking increasingly concerned now, but Clarke continued to disregard his furiously whispered questions.

“ _That sounds great. Oh, and I wanted to let you know – we’ll probably bring a couple more people. Octavia’s brother is coming and I invited another friend of mine to join us. We’re all…you know. I hope that’s all right._ ”

“Of course,” Clarke said, “The more the merrier.” Clarke made a note to call Monty and Raven once she had hung up with Lincoln. “You remember where the gallery is?”

“ _I do, thanks. See you tomorrow, Clarke._ ”

They said their goodbyes and Clarke hit ‘End Call,’ finally turning to her agitated friend. She was rather ecstatic about the impending meeting, but she had a feeling Wells would not be. “So, I did something you’re probably not going to like.”

* * *

Just after 11:30 the next day, Clarke found herself pacing nervously around the gallery while Wells watched her quietly from his place against one of the now-blank walls.

When he could no longer stand the pacing, he sighed and said, “Clarke, please calm down. You’re making me dizzy.”

Clarke huffed and rolled her eyes, but stopped anyway, turning to walk over and lean against the wall beside him. Admittedly, Wells was just as nervous – though for different reasons, all concerning her _safety_ rather than whether these people would actually show up. But Clarke seemed to trust them (as much as one _can_ trust what basically amounts to a group of complete strangers), so he tried to follow his own advice and relax, even as Clarke began rambling nervously about how much leftover pizza the two of them would have to eat if nobody showed.

By some miracle, he was saved from having to convince her to calm down again by the sound of a knock on the gallery door echoing through the large, empty space. Someone was early.

Wells chuckled as Clarke practically ran to the door. When she yanked it open, they saw Raven standing on the other side, sucking on a cough drop and apparently oblivious to or uncaring of the black smudge of grease on the bridge of her nose.

Raven smiled. “Hey.”

“Hi,” Clarke greeted, stepping aside to let her in. “I’m glad you came.”

Raven nodded, glancing around the blank white walls of the gallery. “Sorry I’m so early. My coworker came to take over my shift and give me the rest of the day off, and the shop is pretty close to here, so I thought I’d just head over.”

“Oh, no problem,” Clarke told her, closing the door. Wells cleared his throat then, reminding her that he and Raven hadn’t met. “Right. Raven, this is my best friend Wells. Wells, Raven,” she said, gesturing to each in turn.

“Hey,” Raven said as they shook hands. “Are you one of us, too?”

“Nope. I’m just here for support.”

“Support?” Raven asked.

“He carried in all the pizza and soda,” Clarke explained, and Raven laughed.

At the sound of another knock from the door, Clarke left Wells and Raven to chat and went to answer it.

The woman on the other side was both unfamiliar and very attractive, Clarke noted, feeling only mildly ashamed at the way her eyes flickered up and down the woman’s lean body before coming to rest on striking green eyes. She couldn’t help but notice a similar look of appraisal there. Clarke opened her mouth to ask the obvious question, but the woman beat her to it.

“Hi. I’m Lexa Woods, a friend of Lincoln’s.”

Clarke nodded, eyes lighting up in recognition. “Of course. It’s nice to meet you, Lexa. I’m Clarke.”

Lexa refrained from telling her she already knew.

They stood awkwardly in the doorway for another minute, gazing intently at each other in a stare neither knew how nor wanted to break, until the clearing of a throat behind Lexa interrupted them.

Clarke tilted her head away in an attempt to hide her blush as she stepped aside and let the newcomers in. Lexa stepped past her, followed by Lincoln, Octavia, and a guy Clarke assumed was Octavia’s brother. The latter was introduced to her as Bellamy, but Clarke suggested putting a hold on further introductions until Monty and whomever he was bringing with him had arrived. It wasn’t quite noon yet, so she figured they might still show.

Lincoln left Octavia to stand with Bellamy and walked up to his friend. “Hey, Lexa. Where’s Anya?”

Lexa turned her head sharply at the sound of his voice, but not before Lincoln had followed her gaze to where Clarke still stood by the door. He smirked, and Lexa pretended not to notice as she replied, “She wanted to come, but Indra called her in at the last minute to work detail on an important client.”

Lincoln’s response was interrupted by the arrival of two more people, who Clarke greeted with a familiar smile.

After Clarke had shut and locked the front door, she led them all back to another door at the far end of the gallery and into a room filled with stacked and covered paintings and a large conference-type table laden with pizza boxes and two-liter soda bottles.

They spent the next ten minutes piling pizza onto paper plates, filling plastic cups with soda or water, passing around napkins, and introducing themselves to each other. Clarke stared around the table as everyone ate their pizza and participated in quiet and stilted conversations for a few awkward minutes. On her left, Monty was telling Wells that Miller had had to work, hence his absence, and Jasper had somehow already roped Raven into a discussion about her graduate work. Lincoln and Octavia were making eyes at each other at the other end of the table (Clarke didn’t need telepathy to figure out that the couple thing was a recent development) while Bellamy appeared to be trying his hardest to ignore them both. And to her right, Clarke noticed Lexa sitting stiffly but appearing outwardly calm and collected, working her way slowly through a slice of veggie pizza, and though she felt instantly bad about it, Clarke allowed herself a brief peek into Lexa’s mind.

The first thing she was aware of was that Lexa was a lot more nervous about this meeting than she appeared, but there was also a hint of intrigue at the idea of meeting other Affected. The second thing was that Lexa’s thoughts kept drifting to Clarke sitting next to her every few seconds, before jumping quickly back to an almost too intense focus on the shriveled slices of mushroom on her pizza.

Cheeks burning, Clarke cleared her throat and turned her head away, chastising herself for invading Lexa’s privacy. After a moment, she realized her clearing throat had drawn everyone else’s attention, and they were all staring at her expectantly. Clarke attempted to suppress her embarrassment and straightened in her chair, thinking this was as good a time as any to get to the topic they were really there to discuss.

“We should go around the table and introduce ourselves,” she said, and then face-palmed internally at how stupid that sounded, considering they had already done that not five minutes ago. She could tell Wells was about to tease her, was already opening his mouth, so she quickly amended, “I mean our abilities. And maybe what we do for a living. Most of us only know each other’s names right now.”

Everyone gave nods of agreement, so Clarke shrugged and decided to go first. “I’m an artist, but I also work at a café near my apartment. That’s actually where I first figured out I could read minds. I took a guy’s coffee order before he even gave it to me.” She waited for the handful of quiet chuckles to die down before adding, “I can also move objects with my mind and project some kind of psychic force field.” At everyone’s insistence, she demonstrated all three abilities, and then gestured at Wells to go next, leading in a clockwise path around the rectangular table she sat at the head of.

“I’m a graduate student studying viruses lethal to certain species of plants, and I don’t actually have any abilities,” Wells shrugged. “I’m just involved in this because I’m Clarke’s friend.” He then looked pointedly at Monty, who dropped his cheese pizza onto his plate and wiped his hands and mouth with his napkin before speaking.

“Yeah, uh, I just graduated college with a CSE degree, and now I’m close to wrapping up a paid internship at a local company that will hopefully turn into a full-time position once I’ve finished. Oh, and I can manipulate the electromagnetic spectrum. And see it, hence the glasses. They help normalize my vision.” He spent the next few minutes explaining what that meant and demonstrating by lifting Jasper out of his chair in the rings of light around his hands.

Once the intrigued murmurs had ceased, Jasper, now back in his seat, cleared his throat and declared that he, like Wells, was ‘merely an average mortal, unfortunately not blessed with super awesome powers.’ And that he didn’t actually have a job at the moment.

Raven went next, impressing everyone by using only a touch of her cell phone to command everyone else’s to sound their text alerts simultaneously. They all laughed as Clarke read the text aloud. “ _Technology is my bitch._ ”

Bellamy was next in line, balling a napkin in his hands as he stated dryly, “I teach high school history. And I can manipulate fire and water.”

Raven arched an eyebrow, smirking at him. “What, no air and earth?”

“You’re as bad as Octavia,” Bellamy replied with a roll of his eyes. Octavia barked out a laugh and nudged him teasingly, and Bellamy sprayed water from Raven’s cup at her with a flick of his wrist, prompting the others to join in the laughter.

Clarke was pleased to note the steady decrease in apprehension in the atmosphere of the room as the meeting went on.

“Ooh, show us the fire! Please?” Jasper pleaded, leaning eagerly over the table.

Bellamy sighed lightly, but indulged him, raising his right fist above the table and clenching it until it burst into orange flame.

“My turn!” Octavia announced next to him, and quickly reached out to run her fingers through the flames as everyone unfamiliar with her ability stared in awe. Bellamy huffed and pulled his hand back and the flames disappeared. With a frown at her brother for ruining her demonstration, Octavia explained, “My skin in basically indestructible. Also, I could probably lift a car with one hand,” she boasted. “Oh, and I work at a bar.”

“So, your brother is half-Avatar and you’re part Superman?” Raven observed teasingly. Bellamy only rolled his eyes again as Octavia beamed.

When Lincoln’s turn came, he told them about his personal training work, where he’d met Octavia, and showed off by growing a few more lilies in his hand, presenting them in a bundle to his girlfriend. “I guess I can sort of communicate with plants to make them grow or move. Kind of like you talk to machines, I suppose,” he added, glancing across the table at Raven.

“Hell yeah for talking to non-sentient objects,” Raven joked.

Lexa was last, and everyone turned their focus to her expectantly, and some curiously, as she’d hardly spoken in the time they’d been there. After a moment, she said, “I’m a police detective, which makes keeping my abilities hidden rather difficult when we are expected to essentially hunt people like us down.” A few of them frowned as the light atmosphere from before dissipated at that reminder. “It’s easier to control now,” she continued calmly, “but early on, getting agitated or surprised meant risking someone seeing this.” She lifted both hands, palms facing towards her, as bright bolts of electricity crackled from her fingertips to her elbows.

(Clarke hoped no one noticed her mesmerized stare directed at Lexa’s glowing eyes.)

It was quiet for a moment after Lexa finished. Clarke was the first to break the silence.

“I know it’s dangerous, what with the threat of… capture, but has everyone practiced much with their abilities? Tested their extent and your level of control over them?” A mix of yeses and no’s sounded around the table, and Clarke nodded understandingly. “I know our biggest priority is learning where these abilities came from, figuring out if there’s a genetic component or something, but what if we trained ourselves to control them better, as well? We could find a safe place to practice, even help each other when we can.” She looked to Lexa, blue eyes meeting green. “If nothing else, it might help us become better equipped to avoid potential public spectacles and keep ourselves safe.”

“Like superhero training!” Monty stated eagerly.

“It might not be a bad idea,” Bellamy conceded reluctantly, glancing at his sister.

Octavia nodded approvingly. “I’m game.”

“Yeah, why not?” Raven shrugged.

Lexa pursed her lips and slowly shrugged as well. “I suppose that could be helpful,” she said. “As long as we found a safe and secluded place to do so. It may not be in the news as much anymore, but Affected are still being hunted and even killed.”

“We need to think of a better name than ‘Affected,’” Jasper declared suddenly. “That makes it sound like you guys have some kind of disease or something.”

Monty looked at him. “Technically, that would be _in_ fected, but… Yeah, I agree.”

Varying sounds of indifference, doubt, or agreement bounced around the table.

“I have an idea,” Lincoln said quietly. “Actually, it was kind of Lexa’s idea. Something she said the other day about our abilities. That we’re…inhuman.”

“Yes!” Monty nodded. “That’s awesome. ‘The Affected’ was coined by news media and evil scientists. We have to make a name for _ourselves_.”

“So _that’s_ what we’re going to call people like us?” Bellamy asked skeptically.

“Why not?” replied Monty. “I think it fits.”

“It sounds cool,” Jasper added, earning himself a couple of eye rolls.

Clarke shrugged, nodding along with Monty as she mulled the idea over in her head, and listened to the others do the same. “Then that’s what we are,” she said eventually. “Inhumans.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the end of last chapter I listed some character comparisons to give an idea of what everyone's abilities are like, and as you can see at least in Bellamy's case, they can be pretty loosely based in that regard. They could also be pretty much the same. You'll see as the story progresses, I suppose. Anyway, thank you for reading!


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